The Pregnancy Test
by Chaos Dragon
Summary: When Danny finds a positive pregnancy test, his world gets turned upside down in a most unexpected way. DxS


The Pregnancy Test

Spring break rocked. Spring break of senior year rocked out loud. They'd waited for the movie marathon at Danny's house until the last Saturday of it, and he and Tucker had even managed to force Sam to sit through all three of the Lord of the Rings movies. The uncut and extended director's editions that made her cringe at the very sight of them.

They'd stayed up all night, emptied the fridge and, okay, the kitchen, of all edible food (not including _anything_ his mom tried to cook), and then slept until afternoon. It was, Danny decided as he tossed a wave after the retreating figures of his best friend and his girlfriend, the best way to wind down the last spring break they'd be having together in high school.

College, though, was a completely different beast. Sam had already made noises about Mexico and Hawaii, her treat, and an entirely different place to corrupt with their particular brand of havoc.

It would be fun. At least as fun as the past year had been, between diminishing ghost outbreaks as Danny proved himself to be a more than worthy opponent, and finally asking Sam out. More like being prodded to ask Sam out, he amended as he yawned his way back up the stairs to his room to grab a change of clothes and a clean towel.

That had been Tucker's doing, with a tiny assist from Jazz. They'd been going steady since prom of their junior year, and things weren't exactly dying down between them. If anything, the realization he'd made during freshman year had only been cemented: He didn't ever want to live without Sam Manson. And as far as he was concerned, he was going to make sure that happened.

Of course if the ghost king hadn't interrupted when he did, they might not have wasted almost two and a half years…

As Danny showered and dressed he drifted through his thoughts, none of them being entirely coherent given the fact that he was a teenaged male with less than fourteen hours of sleep under his belt. He was generally pleased with the world, himself, his life.

Then he dropped his hairbrush.

It was an accident, no big deal really. He'd run it through his still damp hair and sat it on the counter next to the sink. Only a little too close to the edge, and it slipped over and clattered to the floor. Still no big deal, and Danny reached down to pick it up where it was lying next to the wastebasket. The not empty waste basket that had a plain white and purple box inside that read _E.P.T._

Still not necessarily a reason to worry, he thought as he picked it up curiously, his hairbrush forgotten on the tiled floor. It was the slim stick underneath that was still flashing clearly up at him as he lifted the box to take a closer look. A pregnancy test. Danny's stomach began to fall away from inside him. An easy to use, easy to read pregnancy test that said 'pregnant' or 'not pregnant.'

And it said pregnant.

Danny Fenton officially freaked out.

---

It was odd that the little test could still be reading 'pregnant' after more than a day of hiding in his dresser drawer underneath piles of boxers and socks. Frightening, really, since he'd actually thought about it since he'd found it. So Jazz was pregnant. No big deal, as long as it wasn't Dash's kid, right? And since she'd never dated him, he was safe.

Except now he could expect to be an uncle, and really, what kind of uncle would he be? A crime fighting superhero that no one really liked all that much since he was a ghost. Half a ghost, but only four people knew that. Clockwork wasn't a person, he was the Master of Time and didn't count. Vlad…

Well, since when was a crazed up fruit loop a person?

But Danny had decided that the best thing to do was to let Jazz know that he knew, and he supported her. And he'd be there just like she'd been there for him. Only without the Anti Creep Stick, the sucking of siblings into the Fenton Thermos, and much better with the witty banter. He refused to let her live down her short lived attempts to fight alongside him. It was too much fun to watch her turn as red as her hair and then shriek for him to get out of her room.

With a sigh Danny waited until he heard his parents descend to the lower levels of the lab, then dug the test out, box and all, and stuck them deep in his pocket before heading down the hall to Jazz's room and knocking on her open door. She smiled up at him and waved for him to come in while she finished with whatever she was typing, and he sat down gingerly on the edge of her bed.

"Problem?" she asked brightly, and Danny couldn't help but glance down at her stomach, wondering how far along she was. She was so thin, just like Sam. He couldn't picture Jazz pregnant anymore than he could picture Sam pregnant. It just made his brain hurt.

He shrugged, feeling the length of the box pressing into his leg and shifted. "No. Just kind of wondering what was going on with you. New things, big news. Things like that."

Oh yeah. Smooth.

She looked at him oddly. "Um, no?"

He cleared his throat. "Are you sure, Jazz? There's nothing you need to talk about?"

She leveled an even stare at him, then frowned. "Are you okay? You're not overshadowed are you?" The stare turned glare and he saw her hand inching to the Fenton thermos that was habitually kept on her desk now.

With a groan Danny collapsed back on the bed, grabbing one of her pillows and dragging it over his face before letting out a loud sigh. "I'm not overshadowed, Jazz."

"Right," she said, and he heard the thermos powering up. "And I'm sure that's what you want me to think, Spectra."

Danny yelped and lunged off the bed as a familiar blue vortex swirled over the bedspread where he'd just lain. "Jazz! It's me!"

"Tell it to someone who believes you," she shot back as the thermos arced toward him, and Danny shrieked most unmanfully as he ducked and rolled into the wall, barely missing being sucked into the thermos.

Furiously Danny dug into his pocket, the box and test fumbling out just in time to drop to the floor as he ducked again, hands covering his head. Then the whirring from the thermos stopped. After a moment he peeked out through his arms, blue eyes wide and fearful, only to see the pale shock on his sister's face.

His stomach burned as he realized that it was hers, and her eyes slipped closed slowly. "Jazz," he started softly as he uncurled from his crouch. "I—" He stopped as he realized he didn't know exactly what to say, and his worry grew.

And turned into straight confusion as Jazz started laughing.

"You don't think that this is _mine_, do you?" Her turquoise eyes narrowed at him, and Danny felt like curling back up into a ball. "You do."

"I, uh, just thought…"

She arched an eyebrow at him. "Danny, I'm not even dating anyone, much less having sex."

"Oh," was all he could say.

"You really thought I was pregnant?" she asked, and Danny nodded with a sigh, letting his eyes slip close as new worry settled over him. It wasn't Jazz's test. Which only left…

There was a whir and frantic blue yes shot open just in time to yelp as he was sucked inside the thermos. "Jazz, come on! Let me out!" he cried as he rattled against the tight confines futilely.

There was a hard shake. "I'll let you out, Danny."

He waited for the lid to pop off and the release mechanism to kick in. But there was another shake that rattled him against the walls.

"Eventually."

He sighed and settled in for a long imprisonment.

---

"Oh god, oh hell, oh damn it," he muttered to himself as he stared up at the dark ceiling.

Jazz had finally let him out of the thermos. She hadn't cared to explain why Danny had missed dinner, family checkers time, and his curfew. He was now half way grounded if he missed curfew for any reason for the next two weeks. He bit back the nasty comments he was saving for Jazz. She'd get them sooner or later. He'd find a way to stick her in the thermos, and they'd see who had the last laugh.

But as much fun as being angry with her was, it wasn't helping him as he mulled over the facts, the still positive pregnancy test (and what kind of batteries did it have anyway to s_till_ be showing a reading?) and the fact that since it wasn't Jazz's… He groaned and rolled over to his stomach, trying to ignore the intensifying glow in his room as the sun began to rise.

He'd been thinking it over all night. There just wasn't any other explanation for it.

Sam was pregnant, and she just hadn't told him.

Danny buried his face in his pillow. "Oh hell," he groaned into it as he fought the urge to go ghost and find something to beat the hell out of.

When could it have happened? They'd always been so careful, more than a little paranoid. Babies just weren't in the mix yet. He was only seventeen! They both were only seventeen, and Danny's hands curled into fists as he tried to figure everything out. They really had been careful.

Well, there was that one time after Christmas, when he'd gone over to her house to sneak her Christmas present into her room. He smiled smugly. Oh yeah, that'd been a good Christmas present. And on New Year's Eve after they'd snuck the half bottle of champagne his parents hadn't finished off. And on her birthday, right after… Danny blinked that thought away.

And blinked again as the faint idea that they really needed to be more careful crossed his mind.

Of course, it was a little late for that, he realized as his eyes strayed again to the test that was tucked into the drawer of his nightstand. He couldn't see it, but he knew it was there. Just burning a hole into everything, every last plan he'd made. Sam's plans for college. His hopes for NASA.

"That is so shallow," he said and sat up. "I can't believe I'm being such an ass."

Worrying about him, about Sam and their plans. Screw the plans, he was just worried about Sam now. She was so delicate. Danny's eyes shot wide as he realized that there would be no attempts at hiding a pregnancy on Sam's slim frame. There was no chance to keep this between them until they were both eighteen. Sure, his birthday was in another month. But Sam still had almost five to go.

And they went even wider as Danny realized exactly what he'd finally accepted and wrapped his mind around.

"I'm going to be a dad," he said softly. He raked hands through already messy raven hair. "I'm going to be a dad," he said again.

Now, all he had to do was wait for her to tell him.

---

"Dude, will you stop?"

"Stop what?" Danny asked Tucker absently as he fidgeted while they waited for Sam after school. She'd had to meet with her guidance counselor and all she'd told him was that it was a complication with her application to her university of choice. The sickening weight in his stomach had him wondering if she was going to tell him now, tell him that she'd had to withdraw her application because she was pregnant.

"Danny, you're driving me nuts. What's wrong?" Tucker glared at the halfa sitting next to him and then gave in to the urge to shove him off of the bench, if only so that he could sit in peace. The thud when Danny hit the ground was highly satisfactory.

There was a faint pained grunt and then Danny was floating back up to sit on the bench, hands clenched around the other and knuckles white with the strain. He bit his lip, then took a deep breath. And another. And another.

"Hey Tuck?" he asked suddenly, wondering if he was making a mistake.

"What?" came the distracted response.

"Has Sam told you anything lately?" he asked, eyes dropping to lock onto the slick floor beneath his sneakers. "Anything like, you know, important?"

"Dude. What are you talking about?" Danny's eyes flew up to Tucker's, blue meeting green, and he sighed at the confusion he found in Tucker's. It fairly well rivaled his own.

He shrugged, defensively almost. "Has she talked to you about anything she was worried about talking to me about?"

Tucker's mouth shot up on one side as his entire face twisted into a mask of bewilderment. "No? I don't know. What's wrong?" His face morphed into one of shock and he exclaimed, "You're not breaking up are you?"

"No, no, not breaking up," Danny hurriedly got out, his hands waving through the air as he denied it. "So not breaking up. I love her, I'm not breaking up with her."

A huge grin split Tucker's face. "You admit it?"

Danny groaned as he felt the blush rushing up his neck and across his face. "Tucker," he said warningly.

Tucker shrugged. "You said it once. That's good enough for me. But what's wrong, really?"

Danny sighed and leaned back on the bench, letting his head lean back until it rested against the wall as he mulled over his options. There were several. Redirect the conversation, change the subject, bring up prom. Wait, those were all the same weren't they? He grunted without amusement as he realized they were. So he really had two options. Not talk to Tucker about it, and talk to him about it.

"Did Sam tell you if she was pregnant?" he finally asked quietly, eyes closed and patterns of dancing light taking up the space behind his eyelids.

There was a gargled gasp next to him, and Danny cracked an eye. "Wouldn't that mean you'd have to _do_ something in order to get her pregnant?"

The blush was back in full force, and Danny laughed faintly as he tried to figure out how to answer that.

---

He'd made it through more than forty-eight hours of Tucker's veiled remarks. More than forty-eight hours of his own nerves, worries and hopes before he finally gave in and decided that if she wasn't going to come to him, he'd just have to go to her. It helped that he already knew. He could understand exactly why she'd been so hesitant to tell him.

It didn't make it any easier for him to figure out how to ask her, he realized as he floated outside of her window just after one in the morning that night. Sure, there was still the faint hope that he was wrong, the test was wrong, that she wasn't pregnant. But he thought he'd mostly accepted it. Maybe even kind of looked forward to it. Just a little.

He reached out and tapped softly on the glass, politely waiting for her to push back the curtain and look at him in surprised before she cocked a finger at him. He slipped through the glass and landed lightly on the carpet next to her, barely making it back to Fenton from Phantom before her arms were warm around his waist and her lips were more than warn on his own.

"Since when do you have to knock?" she asked with a seductive smile.

He watched as she padded quietly back to her desk and tapped a few keys, then turned the monitor off, leaving the room dark except for the faint glow of the moon and the lights from her speakers. Silvery white and blue, he thought. It suited her.

Danny smiled and pulled her back to him, kissing her again, slowly and letting his hands skim down her arms to wrap around her waist. She was so small, he thought as his fingers caressed the still smooth and flat surfaces of her stomach. That was going to change.

"Sam, can I ask you something?" he asked her very, very softly.

She looked up at him curiously, and smiled. "You just did." She frowned then, probably at the vivid worry on his face, and then nodded. "Anything."

"I found something the other day after the sleepover. Jazz said it wasn't hers."

She quirked an eyebrow up, and asked him, "What was it?"

He ran a finger over her cheek, kissed her again, willing her to know how much he loved her. Surely if she knew she'd just tell him when he asked. "It was a pregnancy test. A _positive_ pregnancy test." He stopped and took a deep breath. "Sam, are you pregnant?"

She didn't say anything, but Danny read the answer on her suddenly red face, and then winced as she went deathly pale and flushed red again. _She is,_ he thought faintly as his heart pounded in his chest.

"Oh god," he finally said as Sam still struggled for words. "How did this happen? I mean, I know how, but _how_?" He turned to her and hugged her, held her close, then let her go. "What are we going to tell our parents?" he gasped.

That wasn't something he wanted to do. Not to hers, or his. But mostly not hers. They already hated him. They were so uptight and proper. They'd demand a marriage. Oh _hell_.

"We're going to have to get married—" he started and was cut off dead in his tracks by Sam's hand over his mouth and her violet eyes piercing into his.

"Don't have a heart attack, Danny," she said to him, and he blinked at the amusement in her voice. "I'm not pregnant."

"You're not?"

She shook her head. "No, I'm not. And Danny, if I was, I sure as hell wouldn't be doing the test at your house and leaving the evidence behind."

There was a long moment when all he could do was learn how to breathe again, and then he was wrapping his arms tightly enough around her that she protested. He let go of her with a kiss, and sighed in relief, trying to ignore the faintest twinges of disappointment. There was plenty of time to consider kids in the future.

Sam came back close to him and wound her arms around his neck, pulling him down and pressing a kiss to his cheek before letting go of him and laying her head against his chest. "And just so you know, if I even _thought_ I needed a pregnancy test, you'd be the first to know."

"That's a relief," he finally said. "I've been going around thinking that you were just trying to find a way to tell me."

"Nope," she chirped happily as she dragged him over to her bed and shoved him down, crawling up next to him and snuggling into his arm. "Not pregnant. No worries. So you don't have to marry me because you knocked me up."

"I don't want to marry you just because you're pregnant," he said easily and then turned bright red as two violet eyes looked up at him in shock as he realized what he'd just said. "But, uh, it doesn't matter. You're not pregnant and there's nothing to worry about so—"

Her hand on his mouth effectively silenced him as she looked at him. "Quit babbling, Danny," she ordered. "I can pretend you didn't say anything," she finally said after a long silence.

Danny sighed and pulled her closer. "I don't want you to pretend anything, Sam. I love you. You know I love you, right?"

She nodded as she looked up at him, her head resting on his chest as her fingers played with his shirt. "I know you do," she said softly with a faint smile for all the times he'd told her, and for all of the times she'd wanted to say it to him. "I love you, too, you know."

The smile he flashed her was brilliant, and she fought back the urge to kiss him. "I do love you, Sam, and I don't want to live without you. It's as simple as that. I want to marry you." He sat up, pulling her upright with him and pressing a gentle kiss to her surprised face, her cheek warm and soft beneath his lips.

"I don't have a ring for you right now. I left it at home. I wasn't planning on asking you like this. I was going to wait until after graduation." He gently stroked hair back from her face. "But I figure now is as good a time as any."

"So you're, ah, going to ask me to marry you?" Sam finally said.

He smiled and nodded. "Yeah. Sam, will you marry me?"

---

"So you guys aren't pregnant?"

"Nope," came two voices in unison.

"So much for Uncle Tucker," Tucker muttered as he poked at his PDA. "Well, I can still win money. Just don't have any kids until after we graduate, okay?"

"Tucker," Danny started, and was interrupted by the pained cry Tucker gave when Sam's booted foot connected with his shin.

"Sam," he whined as he knelt and rubbed the swiftly swelling bruise. "You didn't have to do that."

"Yes, I did," she shot back, arms crossed and foot tapping. "So whose test is it?"

Danny shrugged. "I don't know. Think maybe a ghost planted it?"

Tucker snickered. "The Lunch Lady could have. Doesn't she have the Box Ghost's lovechild soon?"

Danny shuddered and swiped a fist at Tucker, who ducked it agilely. "I don't even want to contemplate her using my house for a pregnancy test. Besides, I really doubt if ghosts can use them."

"It was a thought," Tucker said with a shrug. "So, when are you guys going to fess up?" he asked with a pointed look at Sam, who immediately shoved both hands behind her back and turned pink.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," she said as Danny smothered a laugh.

"Sure you don't. And no one has opened a book with me about that rock on your left hand," Tucker said as he punched a couple of buttons on his PDA and flipped it around to show them the impressive list of students betting on when they'd announce their engagement. "But you don't have to tell me, I'm just the best friend."

"Aw, Tuck, don't be hurt," Danny said. "We just wanted to keep it quiet. Because of her parents."

"And his," Sam put in. She poked at his PDA. "And because every time something happens you open a book on it and win a fortune."

Tucker chuckled. "Fine, fine. Then don't elope and I win no money." He laughed harder at the look shared between his two best friends. "You guys were already planning to, weren't you? I'm going with. I'm best man, you know."

"You're best _friend_," Danny said sincerely as Sam hugged Tucker, and pulled Danny in, too, to make it a group hug.

"You know, this still doesn't explain the pregnancy test," Tucker said a while later as they started out of the park and back to Danny's house. "Who's pregnant? I want to know!"

Danny gave a half shrug. "I don't know. Jazz said it wasn't hers, and she was pissed enough that I believe her."

"And it's not mine, either, even if I was in the house that night," Sam added.

"Guys," Tucker said slowly as he stopped in his tracks. Danny and Sam both turned to look at him curiously, and he winced as he met Danny's eyes. "Dude, there were _three_ women in your house that night. Not just Jazz and Sam."

"No way," Sam said as she looked up at a suddenly pale Danny. And then all three were turning back around to look at the glowing Fenton Works sign still two blocks away.

Danny swallowed, blinked, breathed in, breathed out, then in again. There was complete silence around the three friends, as if even the world itself dared not move at the thought that had wrapped itself around Tucker's mind and slowly spread to the other two. The thought that made them all wonder, and then immediately want to deny it as they realized each and every one that it was the explanation they'd been searching for. Indeed, the only explanation possible.

Danny blinked and finally breathed one word.

"_Mom."_

---

**All I can say is, "Go Jack."**

**And that I purposefully ended it this way. I'm adding this to head off any of the expected questions/comments about Jazz and why the test wasn't in Maddie's bathroom. I expect Jazz figured it out before she let Danny out of the thermos. She's smart like that, 'nuff said. And I expect that Maddie was trying to keep it from Jack until she knew for certain and had found a way to tell him without scaring him half to death, since I expect they're in their early to mid 40's.**

**Edited: 09/28/2006.**


End file.
